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The United States-Colombia free trade agreement, which came into effect four years ago this month, is being criticized for having failed in its aims to promote Colombian exports and for doing little to improve the human rights situation in the South American country.
“The numbers indicate that, contrary to what was said by the defenders of the treaty, Colombia has not increased it exports to the United States, the opposite is true, they have drastically dropped from about $21 billion 969 million dollars to $9 billion 842 million in 2015,” said Senator Jorge Enrique Robledo, from the leftist Democratic Pole.
Robledo added that Colombian exports, as a percentage of total exports, to the United States dropped from 38.6 in 2010 to 27.6 in 2015.
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Meanwhile, Colombian Minister of Commerce Maria Claudia Lacouture defended the agreement, saying that 1,255 non-mining companies had begun exporting to the U.S. since the treaty came into effect.
"What is evident when analyzing the figures is that 98 percent of new exporters are micro, small and medium enterprises and of these, half are micro," Lacouture told Dinero magazine.
The deal also opened up the Colombian market to U.S. exports, which has had a negative effect on those working in agriculture, according to Agricultural Dignity spokesperson Oscar Gutierrez.
He said that Colombia went from importing 400,000 tons of agricultural goods in 1990 to 12 million in 2015, representing a loss of 130,000 jobs.
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According to Senator Robledo, Colombia is at risk of losing its trade surplus with the United States in agricultural goods due to the effects of the free trade agreement.
In the four years since the deal came into effect, agricultural exports to the U.S. increased by 16 percent, while imports from the U.S. increased by 120 percent.
At the same time, the existing trade deficit in industrial sector has widened by nearly US$1.6 billion in four years.
“We have a higher unemployment rate then we had before signing the agreement. We have seen how Colombian manufacturing producers have become marketers of American products,” Angelica Gonzalez of the Colombian Association of Small and Medium Industries told Semanario Voz.
Trade Unionists Killed
The deal was approved in the United States only after lawmakers pushed to include guarantees for the protection of labor rights in the treaty; that section of the deal is known as Chapter 17.
The promoters of the deal said it would lead to a reduction in human rights violations against trade unionists. Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for labor activists.
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However, since the deal took effect, the killings of trade unionists continues unabated with 99 killed since 2012.
Earlier this month, labor activists with two of Colombia's trade union confederations, the CUT and USO, along with the U.S. AFL-CIO filed a formal complaint about the lack of progress with respect to human rights.
According to Nicolas Escandon, a Colombian lawyer who helped draft the request, state security forces are partly to blame for the situation facing organized labor in the country.
“When workers are set to make their protests, they find that companies are allied with the security forces and call the (anti-riot police) or the army so they will to attack or deter the trade unionist,” Escandon told Voz.
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This despite the fact that the free trade agreement explicitly requires the Colombian state to protect trade unionists.
The Chapter 17 complaint looks to create a space for representatives of both countries to address the issue. The complaint also seeks to implement a series of judicial reforms to better protect workers, and trade unionists, as well as defend the right to a union.
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